Co-RELATION OF ROAD TRANSP(
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F AND AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS
A Striking Article by a Farming Authority, Who Explains the Ways in Which the Agriculturist is Indebted to Power-propelled Implements and Motor Vehicles. He Expresses Appreciation of the Help Afforded by Makers and Hauliers By THOMAS PEACOCK
President of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales.
THE Royal Show is more than a landmark in the farmers' year; it is an annual stocktaking of agricultural progress. The foundation of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 100 years ago met a great agricultural need. Science, invention and capital were being applied more and more to the farm, and the outline of modern farming was taking shape. Successive shows have testified to the progress which has been made, despite frequent crises and depressions in the industry.
Of all the changes in the post-war years which every visitor to the Show has noticed the most important is the growth of the sections devoted to tractors, to tractordrawn implements, and to motor vehicles. It is not just curiosity which brings farmers to the motor manufacturers' stands at the Show. Every fanner nowadays knows what the motor makers can offer him. He knows that, without their products, farming would be on a very different level from what it is to-day. The Minister of Agriculture knows it too. In his emergency plans he has made some provision for making farm tractors avail able in war time. He knows that, without them, it would be impossible to expand agricultural production to the required extent.
Parliament appreciates the position, inasmuch as special legislation has been passed to assist the farmer to make more use of mechanization on the roads. Without this legislation both the agricultural industry and the motor industry would be seriously retarded.
• LC. Engine Revolutionizes Agriculture • As a working farmer, I can honestly say that in the post-war struggle to adapt methods to difficult and changing conditions it would have been very difficult to carry on without the aid of the internal-combustion engine. • The past 20 years have meant low and unstable produce prices and steadily rising wages. The British market has been open to the unfettered competition of foodstuffs from every country in the world. Without the co-operation of the motor industry farming would, undoubtedly, have "gone under."
No farmer would say that all is yet well with agriculture—the state of much of the land provides too much evidence of distress; but I do not think that I exaggerate when I suggest that the past two decades have brought greater technical progress in farming than possibly in any 100 years before them. The invention of the internal-combustion engine has meant for agriculture a revolution in methods comparable to that following the invention of the first spade, the first breaking of the ox to the plough, or the introduction of wheeled. vehicles. This latest revolution finds the motor becoming more and more the indispensable ally of the farmer, although this
c24 has probably been more apparent to arable farmers than to the dairyman and grazier.
When the first Royal Agricultural Show was staged no one at that time, I venture to state, could foresee that man's ingenuity would produce conditions whereby milk could be despatched from Scotland or West Wales and delivered in London the next day, that vegetable produce could be picked in Cornwall and delivered in Covent Garden early the next morning. The railways were in their infancy, undeveloped, and their sphere of usefulness limited; electricity was very little understood, wireless not thought of, and the internal-combustion engine had not been conjectured.
• Helping Farmers to Overcome Difficulties 4) This last invention has led to radical changes in hus bandry and farming generally. Although from one aspect it might indirectly have helped to cause the problem of shortage of labour which is one of the chief of the present-day difficulties of the farmer, on the other hand it has helped him partly to overcome it.
The speed at which we, of the present clay, live necessitates more than ever before the possibility of transporting agricultural products quickly and efficiently. In this respect, both manufacturers and hauliers can and do contribute. The needs of the industry in respect of this transport are many and varied. Consider for a moment the various branches of agriculture, milk and dairying, livestock, potatoes, sugar beet, fruit and vegetables, poultry and eggs, most of which can be further subdivided, e.g., milk and dairying includes butter and cheese making, poultry and eggs includes the necessity of transporting day-old chicks.
Prosperity for agriculture means more cheerful conditions for the motor industry. Three branches of this industry profit by the needs of the agriculturist ; first, the manufacturers and distributors of tractors ; second, the manufacturers and distributors of motor vehicles; and, third, the professional haulier.
It is estimated that there are now some 50,000 agricultural tractors used in this country. In 1919 the number was in the vicinity of 5,000. In those days immedi• ately after the war a tractor was a machine which could
be used for little else but ploughing and e.liag on the farm. Owing to the development of lower-powered and lower-priced machines, the tractor has now tended to displace the horse, and on small farms the sniall tractor is, in effect, almost an economic necessity. Ability to mount the tractor on pneumatic tyres less enabled such machines to be used on the fields and the roads to haul farm produce and articles required for every kind of farm work.
Continued depression has tended to exhaust the capi-, Jai of the agricultural industry, and comparatively few farmers are able to afford a tractor. Nevertheless, the importance of the -agricultural industry is recognized by the Government, inasmuch as an agricultural tractor when used on the roads within the ordinary operations of a farm is subject to a reduced licence duty of 5s. per annum.
• How the Manufacturer is Helping •
The manufacturers of .motor vehicles are .verv much alive to the varied requirements of the many branches of the industry for the conveyance of livestock. .What I might term "Rolls-Royce vehicles," padded and fitted with all necessities, are available for the transport of horses and pedigree cattle. Trucks capable of carrying 250 sheep by means of three decks are in use; special tank wagons are provided for the conveyance of milk. The type of body needed for moving sugar beet, potatoes, grain, fruit, eggs, etc., is available.
For the general farm of the smaller type, vehicles have been made capable of dealing with the ordinary everyday needs, and this general-purpose type of vehicle, costing about £250-£300, can be put to a wide range of uses with economical running costs. As a rule, it is provided with a detachable rack extension. To meet the needs of the Transit of Animals (Amendment) Order, a ramp with a guard rail is to be found. For producerretailers of milk, special types of light van are available which have been especially designed for their particular requirements.
The professional haulier in the rural districts finds the farmer a very good customer. So far as can lw estimated, the road haulier conveys about three-fifths of the total sugar-beet crop, which consists of about 4,000,000 tons. There has been a very great turnover in the conveyance of milk from rail to road. The vast majority of eggs is now transported by road, and the conveyance of potatoes, grain, fertilizers and feeding stuffs find employment for many thousands of hauliers'• vehicles.
• Rapid Transport of Perishables Essential •
The haulier must. be and, I confidently say, is, in most instances alive to the importance of traasporting quickly and well, perishable produce from the farms to the consuming areas.
Present-day agricultural markets are accustomed to the busy, active ways of road-transport operators with their vehicles. Sometimes an operator has to make two or three journeys from outlying farms to the market and, therefore, has to begin his work in the very early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, however, in a good many rural areas, complaints have been received that there are not sufficient professional hauliers available for the work to be done; consequently throwing upon the farmer the onus of using his own or his neighbour's vehicle, or irs the, case of the smaller farmers, where they are sending only two or three animals or a small number of sheep or pigs, to convey them by means of a trailer behind a private car.
It is only fair to point out that the hauliers have their difficulties in connection with the transport of farm produce and requisites, and that farmers have been advised to prevent, so far as possible, delays which frequently occur to lorries and vans through having to wait unnecessarily at farms, and requests have been put forward that they should improve their farm roads so as to enable motor vehicles more easily to obtain access to the farm buildings, etc.
• Farmers and Hauliers are Good Friends •
Generally speaking, however, it cannot be denied but that the relationship which exists between hauliers in rural districts and the farmers is an excellent one, probably being reflected in that which is in operation between the headquarters of the National Farmers' Union and the headquarters of the Associated Road Operators.
One of the interesting features touching upon transport which will be found at the Royal Show next week will be a cavalcade of historic vehicles. The National .Horse Association has arranged these parades and the King has lent 20 horses and some of the vehicles, about 40 of which will be on view. I understand these will be used and paraded each afternoon during the Show. The parade will unroll before the spectators a picture displaying scenes indicating the development of road-vehicle design during the past century and will afford an interesting comparison with the tractors and other mechanized units which are a feature of the Show, and which have been such for several years. past.
One of the special items in the tractor class, I understand, will be a new light land tractor mounted on two wheels, which might be classified as a "mechanical horse."
• More Services and Better Roads Required •
Having reviewed to a certain extent the past and dealt with the present, what of the future? In view of the radical changes which are in process, one hesitates to adopt the role of a prophet, the evolution being brought about by the internal-combustion engine must even more powerfully affect the country. Every year has seen more cars, more lorries, more tractors. The present requirements are better road services and more attention to the construction and maintenance of the unclassified highways. With the co-operation of the motor industry and with the necessary assistance from the Government, the agricultural industry looks forward to better and more prosperous times, and, in these critical days especially, the importance of a strong and virile agriculture as a national asset cannot be too strongly stressed.
Consumers, and every man, woman and child in the nation, are, in some form or other, customers of agriculture. The British farmer, therefore, desires that his products, which are the best in the world, shall be available in their best condition, fresh and acceptable for the benefit of the consumer. To achieve this end, everybody looks to the road-transport industry for the necessary assistance.